


Past (The Guards)

by euhemeria



Series: And, In Sign of Ancient Love, Their Plighted Hands They Join [88]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Retrospective, complicated family dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27093874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euhemeria/pseuds/euhemeria
Summary: Ana was a deeply flawed woman, still is, but one whose intentions have always been good, no matter whom her actions have hurt.  There is a sort of nobility in that, the tragic kind, always intending well but having no power to understand which choice is the right one until after it has been made.Or,Entirely by accident, Jesse helps Fareeha come to better understand a part of her past.
Series: And, In Sign of Ancient Love, Their Plighted Hands They Join [88]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/508281
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Past (The Guards)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [binarylazarus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/binarylazarus/gifts).



> technically this is a repost bc i originally had it as the second chapter of smtg else. but now it is a stand alone. bc i am re-ordering things a bit
> 
> original a/n said:  
> just a little thing about choices, and (not) coming to regret them  
> in which jesse accidentally tells fareeha exactly what she needs to hear, and never even realizes it

Fareeha read, once, that one can only understand one’s own life, one’s own actions, in hindsight. In the moment, one never truly understands oneself, one’s circumstances. At the time, she scoffed at the idea—few people know themselves so well as she—but the older she becomes, the more she starts to believe those words. Even when she thought she understood her own decisions, thought she knew why it was she acted in the ways that she did, things are so different, fifteen years on.

Here is the truth: Fareeha chose to join the military. She knew that it might cost her her relationship with her mother, but she made that choice nonetheless, believing following in Ana’s example to be more important than to remain in her good graces.

That, then, was the truth, and now, it is no less true. It is the decision she made: to try and be a hero like her mother, a protector, a savior.

What is different is this: now she knows so much more about what it means, truly, to be a woman like Ana. Her mother was no hero, not in her own eyes, was not protecting anyone, in the end, only changing which injury the world might deal to them, could save no one, for the scope of Overwatch was too narrow, their ability to help limited only to the realm of the martial, and people cannot survive off of bullets, cannot build a life from gunfire.

So, the truth as she knew it then is not _really_ the truth, after all.

Here is the truth: Fareeha chose to follow the same path as Ana, believing that such was to be a hero, to be a good person, a just one. Instead, like her mother, she has been made to do things she does not believe in, could never support, and like her mother, she has learned the limitations of her own ability to do good in the world, her ability to help others.

Like she once believed, she chose to continue her mother’s legacy, is choosing it still, but that legacy carries with it now a meaning which is entirely different.

Time has not changed the truth, time has not changed the nature of her decision, but the context in which it was made, she now knows, was so very different than she once believed, and so, so knowing, was her choice.

What she will think of that decision in another fifteen years, she shudders to think.

Yet here and now, she is making a decision, too. What it will mean, she does not yet know, and the context of her decision may never be fully revealed to her.

What she knows is this: her mother is alive. Her mother is alive, and she has been alive, all these years, and Fareeha has become the keeper of her secrets. That is a choice she made, to not speak of her mother’s life, even as she chose, too, to not speak to her mother, and increasingly, it is becoming apparent that to make such a decision is to learn to live a fractured existence. To those who surround her, now, in the Recall, she is one thing, a daughter whose work honors her mother’s legacy, who mourns, in her own way, becomes the embodiment of her mother’s sadaqah jariyah. To herself, however, she is someone different, is a woman working to right the wrongs of the past, to become not an extension of her mother’s legacy, but of what she once believed that same legacy to be.

To not speak about this, to not tell the others that Ana is alive, it is a choice. What it will mean for her, she does not yet know. One day, she will know the truth, and only then will she understand the consequences.

For now, what she knows is this: her mother was a deeply flawed woman, still is, but one whose intentions have always been good, no matter whom her actions have hurt. There is a sort of nobility in that, the tragic kind, always intending well but having no power to understand which choice is the right one until after it has been made. Fareeha knows that such is her mother’s path, and so too will be her own.

(In fact, it is the path of everyone, to do as best they are able with only the knowledge available to them at the time, and to only later learn that with the best of intentions they made the gravest of their mistakes. To live such a life is to be human.)

Limited as she is by time and perspective, Fareeha believes this to be right. What good would it do, to tell the others? What comfort would it be to them, knowing that Ana is alive, but she chose not to tell them, chose to live apart from them? Surely, it would only hurt.

(Later, Fareeha will come to regret this decision, but she does not know, now, that the others will learn of her mother’s life, does not know that Ana will return to the fold. At the time, this seems a mercy, if only a small one. Instead, it only prolongs a hurt.)

So Fareeha is making a decision, not saying anything about her mother’s life, is choosing to hurt herself in order to spare others pain. That is a noble decision, she thinks, a good one. Even if time makes a fool of her, no one can doubt that her intentions were good.

In this way, too, she is like her mother.

But it is a strange thing, to be the daughter of a living woman, but to live herself among those to whom her mother is dead. The way they speak of her, all the others, is tinged with a sort of reverence. People do not wish to speak ill of the dead, want only to remember the good things about them. What would be the point in remembering their flaws, when there is no way to hold the dead accountable?

So, in living with an Overwatch that believes her mother is dead, Fareeha has chosen to live, instead, with a version of her mother who never was.

(Maybe later, the others will regret this, when they learn that Ana is alive, maybe the truth of this time, of their words, will change for them in meaning, but Fareeha will never be able to ask, because she will carry with her always the guilt of the lie she is telling. Later, she will know that her guilt was not worth having, but for now, she fancies herself as someone who is doing the decent thing, in not speaking about her mother’s continued life.)

It is a strange thing. With few exceptions, the others are so complimentary of Ana, think of her as a woman who sacrificed herself for them—and she did, and that will always be true, but her sacrifice was not the one they thought, was not her life but her happiness, her identity as a good and moral person, as a hero—and Fareeha cannot think of her mother that way.

For now, not knowing what the future will change of her perspective, Fareeha thinks her mother a coward, for not saying that she is alive. Rather than face the consequences of Overwatch’s actions head on, as herself, Ana has turned herself into a martyr. What good does that truly do? All the work she does now, she could do as herself, and that would do more for the people whom Overwatch hurt, would give them the opportunity to decide for themselves whether or not she has earned their forgiveness.

No one is allowed to be angry at a martyr. Least of all Fareeha.

But she is angry, she is, has been for many years now, and she will continue to be. Even when she thought her mother dead, she was angry, angry at their lack of a resolution, angry to have been cheated the chance at reconciliation. Then, it was not allowed to her, and she kept that feeling a secret, and now she chooses to keep it secret still, because she wants for everyone else to be allowed to love her mother, to see her as a better woman than she was, does not want to leave them with the pain of abandonment. 

Her mother left—of her own volition—and although Fareeha now has that chance at a reconciliation, again, because Ana is alive, she does not know how she could possibly seek it out, does not know how to set aside her anger.

That is fine, it is. Anger is not an evil thing, despite what others may believe, to feel it does not make her a worse person, or any less kind. She needs that anger, now, while keeping this secret, needs to have not reconciled with her mother, because it would be harder still to have to pretend that Ana is dead if she were not angry with her, would mean accepting that the lie she is leading is her own choice.

Intellectually, she knows it is. But her mother put her in this position, so it seems to her now, and so her mother bears some responsibility, too.

(In two years’ time, when Ana has been accepted back into Overwatch, has once again made her home among them, Fareeha will understand that it is not so. Ana may have created this situation, but she never asked Fareeha to lie, and did not intend to keep her life a secret forever. If Fareeha had wanted to, she could have spoken out, and Ana could not have stopped her. The lie and the anger she lived with were her own. And in a few more years’ time, Fareeha will forgive herself for making that choice.)

Still, it is Fareeha who bears the consequence, Fareeha who hears all the others speak with her mother with a reverence Fareeha herself once knew, a feeling she now can no longer quite call to mind. It is Fareeha who chooses, and Fareeha who suffers, and Fareeha who will have to understand this choice, later, as an event within the greater context of her life.

As she is now, she thinks it is the right decision, even as it hurts her. She thinks it is right, even if there is only one person with whom she feels she can safely discuss her feelings, one other person on base who, too, acknowledges that her mother is flawed.

Angela, a woman whom she long believed to be a friend of her mother, is the sole person on base who does not speak of Ana as if she were perfect, who tells Fareeha that honestly, she prefers _this_ Captain Amari to the old one.

Part of Fareeha is offended on her mother’s behalf. Were Ana truly dead, that would be a terribly unkind thing to say, and inappropriate, too.

Part of Fareeha needs to hear that, to know that although she cannot compare to Ana the martyr, in anyone’s eyes, Ana the woman was flawed, and Fareeha is not some inferior model, is a person all her own. She is not a pale imitation of her mother, even if she feels she is only a shadow of the legacy she is measured against.

Part of Fareeha is surprised. Angela is an orphan—everyone knows this. It is famous, that she went into medicine to save others, such that they would not die as her parents did, and no more orphans would be made. It is clear, in the way she speaks about them, that Angela loved her parents dearly, thinks the world of them, even now, with the reverence reserved for the honorable dead.

So why, then, does she say anything about Fareeha’s own mother, particularly in front of Fareeha?

Now, it does not make sense. Perhaps it will later, but it is a strange thing, even if it is a relief, to know that Angela does not think of Ana as perfect, sees her and Fareeha both as human, and is more aware of Fareeha as an individual person as a result.

To feel unseen is a terrible thing.

So, Fareeha tries not to question it, is only happy for what she has.

(Here is the truth, as Fareeha will later learn it: Angela is not aware of the ways in which she has idealized her own parents, the mythology she has spun around them, killed because they volunteered to help others. Whatever flaws they once had are now forgotten, and although Angela is objective and truthful about all of the dead, does not lie about them because it would be more couth of her, her truth of her parents, their lives, is not an objective one.)

Everyone romanticizes the dead, has to, because the reality of whom they once were is never wholly pleasant.

Because being around other people? It is hard.

Fareeha tries to avoid mentioning her mother, as best she is able, because it is so hard, to lie, and to feel guilt over the lie, hard to see the pain on the faces of the others.

(She will later acknowledge that perhaps she was choosing, instead, to spare herself the pain of another impossible comparison, for she saved them no pain, in the end, with the lie.)

She tries to be her own woman, in their eyes, even as she is painfully aware that she chose to model herself after Ana.

What she thought she was choosing then was Ana’s legacy, the good, and later the bad, but now she sees that she chose, too, a life of comparison, of being defined by her mother, by her reaction to her mother, by the things she did differently and the ones she did the same. Fareeha is her own woman, first, last, and always, but because she chose to carry on her mother’s legacy, it is all too easy for others to reduce her to only that, a legacy writ flesh.

To be angry at the others for feeling this way would be easy, but she is not, saves her anger for her mother, because she thinks that Ana is the one who deserves that anger, for pretending to be dead, and putting Fareeha in this position.

(The truth of it is this: Fareeha chooses to be angry with Ana, rather than with the others, or with herself for the choice, because her mother is far away, out of her contact, and that way, Fareeha can feel the anger without ever living with the consequences, can enjoy the righteousness of it without having to hurt anyone. It is not entirely healthy, this redirection of her feelings, but Fareeha is not an angry person, at heart, and does not know what else to do with the feeling, even as she lives in it.)

Still, it would be a lie to say that is does not bother her, when she says something she thinks is entirely unrelated, and somehow finds the conversation turning to her mother yet again. If she were not aware of the fact that she is angry at someone besides her comrades, she would be upset with Jesse, with the way he answers the question she poses him one morning on the shooting range.

His aim is impeccable, as ever, and she thinks nothing of telling him so. He _is_ a great shot, the best she has ever seen, if she is being honest with herself, and she tries to be, as best she is able to, in the context of the present. So she tells him so, asks him who taught him to shoot, because she is curious, genuinely. He was with the Deadlock Gang before he was recruited, and she has heard about them, has seen the headlines, knows that they are dangerous, and powerful—but they do not behave with any particular precision, from what she knows, and despite his laid-back attitude, Jesse’s shooting is nothing if not precise, seems more military than anything.

Who in Deadlock could have taught him that?

No one, as it turns out, and once she knows the answer—that it was her mother—Fareeha realizes that she knew the truth all along, saw in his movements a sniper’s precision, and must have known that he learned in Overwatch to shoot as he does.

Still, it surprises her. To hear her mother spoken of as the best is nothing new, for Fareeha has heard that her whole life, even before her mother was dead, but she is shocked to learn from Jesse that Ana _taught_ him.

At some point in her life, Fareeha began to think of her mother as not being a very good teacher. After all, just as Ana never taught Fareeha to shoot, she never taught, too, all the ways in which becoming a soldier is destructive to the very soul.

She must have known, Fareeha thinks, because it is why she did not want Fareeha to enlist—she finally admitted as much, after she died—but she did not teach that to Fareeha, did not show her, made no attempt to explain.

All that time, she was suffering, and Fareeha knows it now, knows it from living it, and from her mother’s letter, knows that war made Ana into a woman she never wanted to be, but she never said a word.

What Jesse said changes things. It does. Once, Ana’s decision to try and stop Fareeha from enlisting was one that made Fareeha furious, and her decision to not speak to Fareeha after she shipped out was cruel, was her disowning Fareeha, disavowing her inferior second version. Now, however, Fareeha knows differently, knows that Ana made the decision out of love, not ego, trying to stop Fareeha from becoming like her, and she knows, too, that her mother did not speak to her because she was slipping away, and could not pretend, any longer, to be the woman she once was. To not speak to Fareeha was a decision born of pain and fear, not anger.

After all, she was a good teacher, as Jesse says, was the best at what she did.

(Fareeha remembers, now, that it was her mother that taught her to defend herself, her mother who taught her to be strong, to be brave, to keep going, even when things are painful. All of these lessons were not forgotten, exactly, but they were not convenient to the truth Fareeha knew at the time, the world that Fareeha then lived in, and so the truths fell to the wayside. But now that she thinks of her mother as a teacher, again, she cannot deny that it is true.)

Knowing this, Fareeha is forced to acknowledge that Ana did not refuse to explain to Fareeha her decision, did not avoid her afterwards out of anger, rather she felt that she had no choice to do either of those things. If they had discussed it, the reality of being a soldier, or spoken to one another after Fareeha learned that for herself, Ana would have been forced to reveal truth of the woman she was, then, so very flawed, and hurt by the work of being a hero. She was never the martyr she now allows the others to believe her to be, but she could not show Fareeha that weakness, because like Fareeha’s unspoken anger, to give voice to a thing makes it real.

Once, Ana chose to protect her. She could not have known then that to do so would mean hiding from Fareeha the cost of her decision. But sometimes, lies are kinder than the truth. This, Fareeha now knows.

“She never taught me,” Fareeha tells Jesse, engaging the safety on her weapon before turning to face him.

“Well,” Jesse says, cool as anything, because he does not know what this means to Fareeha, is experiencing this conversation in the context of his own life, and not hers, one in which this revelation is not a revelation at all, and certainly not a significant one, “She never wanted you to enlist. Probly didn’t want you gettin’ too good.”

It is almost absurd, how casually he says it, not even bothering to keep all the syllables in _probably_ , because to him this is just an idle observation. 

Fareeha cannot help the sound she makes in response, disbelieving and hurt all at once. Jesse is not wrong, exactly. Ana never wanted Fareeha to become good at killing, but not because that would have meant Fareeha would have been a shoo-in to join Overwatch, when still it stood in its first incarnation. To kill is corrupting to the soul, Fareeha knows now. One cannot kill to save others and keep one’s sense of innate goodness intact. It is an injury to one’s morality, being a soldier, even as she thinks it is a necessary one.

(She chose this, to be like her mother, to be hurt by the killing, and like her mother, she believes that such a choice is necessary, even as it hurts her, even as she cannot acknowledge that she, Fareeha, is the same Pharah who has accidentally injured civilians, with a misplaced rocket. Not only is she saving civilians’ lives, she is saving other people from having to become soldiers, from having to do the things she has done, from trying to sleep with the knowledge of what it looks like, a body mangled by shrapnel. Once, she thought she was choosing to be a hero, but this is the legacy her mother could not— _would not_ —teach her, and knowing it, she knows, too, that she made the correct choice, does not regret the pain she has suffered, for it means preventing it in others.)

“I guess not,” Fareeha says.

There is a pause, as they examine their targets. Jesse’s is perfect, looks like a single hole to the head, despite the fact that he shot twelve bullets, and Fareeha’s, while tight, and all within bullseye range, is very noticeably still a cluster of shots to the heart. A killshot, each and every one, but not with the precision her mother could have taught her, had she been able to imagine that Fareeha would become a soldier, that all the pain she suffered in protecting her daughter was for naught.

Looking at her target, Jesse whistles, long and low, “Guess you didn’t need her to teach ya, huh?”

No, thinks Fareeha, she did not need Ana to teach her what it meant to be a soldier, truly, for she has learned for herself, and while the reality is far from pleasant, far from what she believed it would be, she does not regret her decision, even as her understanding of it changes. This is what she wanted to do, and she still wants this, to protect others, even if that protection is of a different sort than she believed.

Yes, thinks Fareeha, she did need her mother to teach her, needed it desperately, so that she could have understood why it was her mother did not want her to become a soldier, could have chosen consciously to lead the sort of life she now does, with all the perspective her mother’s life had granted that parallel decision. She needed to know those things, to understand that her mother did not think her weak, did not think her lesser, did not think her a child, still, but loved Fareeha enough that the pain of imagining what it would mean, to become a killer, was too much to bear.

“No,” says Fareeha, because regardless of what her mother did or did not teach her, she is still here, now, where she feels she belongs, in Overwatch, righting the wrongs of the past, is still able to be an effective leader and a good soldier, and knows her decision to enlist was the right one, even if the choice she made in doing so was not what she believed it to be, “I guess I didn’t.”

Experience has taught Fareeha what Ana would not, could not, and it hurts, it does, but she is where she needs to be. 

“Too bad though,” Jesse says, “She was a good teacher. The best. She’d’ve been proud of you.”

She would not be. She is not. But that is okay, because Fareeha decided, long ago, that she did not need her mother’s approval, and time has changed the context of that decision, but it is still true.

Where Fareeha is now, she chose to be, and time has not yet made her regret it.

**Author's Note:**

> the "quote" fareeha remembers is something a man named bessel van der kolk told me once, in a conversation. hes an interesting dude and a psychiatrist and he MAY have mentioned the idea in one of his books abt trauma but if i am being entirely honest i have not read them. but basically what he said was that we dont know anything about our present actions except in retrospect, bc we need the fuller context of our lives in order to understand what our choices truly mean for us. which i thought was really neat
> 
> anyway i think fareeha thinks her job is very important and she wants to be a part of overwatch bc she believes it can be a force for good and live up to what it was once presented as. but also theres a lot of baggage there, bc she knows by now how that went for ana. she isnt her mother 2.0, but she cant ignore the parallels, either
> 
> unlike ana, tho, she doesnt carry so many regrets
> 
> anyway, sometimes our friends are there for us completely by accident. jesse is definitely that kind of friend for fareeha. like she values their time together, thinks he's hilarious, etc, but the times hes been there for her most havent even really been on purpose. and thats okay!


End file.
